Conventional packet-based networks were designed to support reliable data transfer over unreliable communication networks. Although such networks may achieve high performance at a reasonable cost, system designers and end-users alike expect some packets to be dropped occasionally. Although some recovery mechanisms exist for the retransmission of the dropped packets, lengthy delays still occur and application performance is impaired.
In some instances, the dropped packets may cause delays on the order of 250-300 ms. For latency critical operations, such as block access storage, a variety of solutions have been developed. However, such solutions have not been widely implemented due to their significant drawbacks. For example, specialized networks that rarely drop the data packets, such as data center Ethernet (“DCE”), InfiniBand, and others have been developed. However, such implementations currently have scale limitations, require specialized switches, and are otherwise expensive to implement. As a result, such specialized networks have not been widely deployed.